71 replies to this topic

[ucantcme]

How about something for Keesler AFB in Gulfport, MS?

The default scenery sux there...and I have always wanted to fly into there with some awesome scenery.  

Keep up the good work!

I can see you working with AlphaSim some day  

[oddworld]

I would like to see freeware lakenheath afb scenery

Edited by dark venom, 25 February 2005 - 07:19 AM.

[IBtheSarge]

ucantcme, on Feb 25 2005, 08:02 AM, said:

How about something for Keesler AFB in Gulfport, MS?

The default scenery sux there...and I have always wanted to fly into there with some awesome scenery.  

Keep up the good work!

I can see you working with AlphaSim some day  

Sorry, can't get Keesler AFB MS into the Pease AFB NH scenery, no matter how hard I might try .... or did you mean to start a new thread on Keesler?

[IBtheSarge]

dark venom, on Feb 25 2005, 08:19 AM, said:

I would like to see freeware lakenheath afb scenery

Unfortunately, like the post on Keesler, Lakenheath won't fit into the Pease AFB NH scenery, either ..... or, like ucantcme, did you mean to start a new thread on Lakenheath?

[notadrater]

ucantcme, on Feb 25 2005, 07:02 AM, said:

I can see you working with AlphaSim some day  

Ooh, I would love to see sarge do some payware!

[ucantcme]

Of course

Sarge your awesome man! You should talk to some Alphasim ppl! They are military and I see you are too..

Where can I DL your scenery? Looks awesome!

[IBtheSarge]

ucantcme, on Feb 25 2005, 08:41 PM, said:

Of course

Sarge your awesome man! You should talk to some Alphasim ppl! They are military and I see you are too..

Where can I DL your scenery? Looks awesome!

I do talk to ALPHASim, and particularly one of their scenery designers.  He's busy working the UK airbases.  I'm doing an AI AFCAD2 for one of the bases there for him/them.

Why would anyone want me to go payware when my scenaries are free?  You aren't related to the folks who figured it would be cheaper to buy bottled water at the supermarket, instead of having CLEAN drinking water piped into the home by the city's Water Department, are you?  

As for d/l my scenaries, they'll be hosted here (on FS2004.com) or on my website (see bottom of my signature).

Edited by sarge, 26 February 2005 - 02:38 AM.

[notadrater]

sarge, on Feb 26 2005, 02:37 AM, said:

ucantcme, on Feb 25 2005, 08:41 PM, said:

Of course

Sarge your awesome man! You should talk to some Alphasim ppl! They are military and I see you are too..

Where can I DL your scenery? Looks awesome!

I do talk to ALPHASim, and particularly one of their scenery designers.  He's busy working the UK airbases.  I'm doing an AI AFCAD2 for one of the bases there for him/them.

Why would anyone want me to go payware when my scenaries are free?  You aren't related to the folks who figured it would be cheaper to buy bottled water at the supermarket, instead of having CLEAN drinking water piped into the home by the city's Water Department, are you?  

As for d/l my scenaries, they'll be hosted here (on FS2004.com) or on my website (see bottom of my signature).

Maybe because of more features etc.

I think if you ever did do an independent one with all the standard features, ALPHA would be a perfect fit.

[TechnicolorYawn]

sarge, on Feb 24 2005, 01:24 AM, said:

I've a feeling that the best way to do that would be to make the rise in Gmax, and texture it using textures taken from an overhead screenshot of the ground nearby.

Its really tricky to make sharp edges on a heightmap, because unless the rise is rectangular and pointing directly north/south (or east/west), you get jagged edges because the polygons that make up the ground are aligned north/south.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Feb 26 2005, 07:11 PM, said:

Its really tricky to make sharp edges on a heightmap, because unless the rise is rectangular and pointing directly north/south (or east/west), you get jagged edges because the polygons that make up the ground are aligned north/south.

You're absolutely right .... hadn't thought that all the way through.  I could use four 3-sided tubes, with the angle adjusted to present a right triangle with a moderate slope from 0' to 12', connect them together then set the building down inside in the middle.  Textures would come from the FS9/Scenery/World/Texture folder, using the conditional pre-set to make the ground change with the seasons.  (Working on that little bit of design with my munitions igloo right now; it's a bit complex -- moreso than just making a regular macro -- but wholly do-able.)

That way, the rise and the building would be a single macro and could be angled to any alignment that matches the run of the parking apron.

Did that make sense?  

[TechnicolorYawn]

sarge, on Feb 26 2005, 06:50 PM, said:

Did that make sense?   

I think so

Edited by TechnicolorYawn, 27 February 2005 - 06:18 AM.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Feb 27 2005, 07:17 AM, said:

sarge, on Feb 26 2005, 06:50 PM, said:

Did that make sense?  

I think so

How's this for the opening stages of the first stab at it?  (Honest opinion .... )

Only texturized the ground (and also used the (newly learned) conditional pre-set for the seasonal texture changes, too   ).  Haven't started on the exits and the tubes leading from underground to them.  But it seems that manipulating the points on the various parts to make them line up is going to be the most intense part of it.

[IBtheSarge]

The "Mole Hole" progress report:

The tubes are evidently going to be the hard part; some of them disappear into the terrain, connecting with the part of the building that is underground.  Matching the points of one end of the tube to the surface of the terrain parts is going to take some time .... a LOT of time!!!!

[IBtheSarge]

Need to "bend" a tube?  Just ask me ...  

  Wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be!

Edited by sarge, 28 February 2005 - 05:32 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

Didn't like where that macro was going; the terrain was too high, for one thing, and the corners just weren't smooth enough.  After a couple of hours of dragging points around and deleting polygons that don't show (bottoms, sitting on the ground, can't be seen, plus interior polygons where two pieces join together), here's the partially completed redesign:

[ucantcme]

sarge, on Mar 1 2005, 11:34 PM, said:

Didn't like where that macro was going; the terrain was too high, for one thing, and the corners just weren't smooth enough.  After a couple of hours of dragging points around and deleting polygons that don't show (bottoms, sitting on the ground, can't be seen, plus interior polygons where two pieces join together), here's the partially completed redesign:

Freakin awesome man!  

Great work!

When you release it....make sure you leave the link

[IBtheSarge]

ucantcme, on Mar 2 2005, 12:45 AM, said:

Freakin awesome man! 
Great work!
When you release it....make sure you leave the link

Thanks.  The guy that's been teaching me XML has also recently up'd my knowledge base on macro polygon manipulation.  Just that stage of the macro was 236 polygons before I started eliminating unnecessary polygons selectively.  It's 157, even with that much detail in it.  I figure the completed macro will be at or only slightly over 200 polygons.  Not a framerate killer, as it only appears once in a scenery, and so far as I know, only two of them were actually built (real-world), and they're hundreds of miles apart; FS9 will never have to draw two of them at the same time.

Will be custom-creating the trees and shrubs (shown in the real-world picture), too.

[ucantcme]

sarge, on Mar 2 2005, 12:00 AM, said:

ucantcme, on Mar 2 2005, 12:45 AM, said:

Freakin awesome man! 
Great work!
When you release it....make sure you leave the link

Thanks.  The guy that's been teaching me XML has also recently up'd my knowledge base on macro polygon manipulation.  Just that stage of the macro was 236 polygons before I started eliminating unnecessary polygons selectively.  It's 157, even with that much detail in it.  I figure the completed macro will be at or only slightly over 200 polygons.  Not a framerate killer, as it only appears once in a scenery, and so far as I know, only two of them were actually built (real-world), and they're hundreds of miles apart; FS9 will never have to draw two of them at the same time.

Will be custom-creating the trees and shrubs (shown in the real-world picture), too.

Your too good

[IBtheSarge]

Photos from the FB-111A Association arrived in yesterday's Snailmail; results of looking at them .... gotta do some serious changes to the AFCAD (and, consequently, some of the macro placements).

1.  Nine FB-111A alert spots on the south ramp instead of eight; add an additional spot and a soft flow-thru shelter, so now six hardened shelters and three soft shelters.  Done

2.  Immediately north of the FB-111A shelters, six KC-135 SIOP alert spots, facing away from the runway, line abreast.  Done

3.  First pad off of the ramp behind the FB-111A alert spots is OMS area with four hangars, two on the north side of the pad and two on the south.

     a.  Had to create a new exclusion to get rid of the default objects there and the building sitting on the ramp right behind the FB-111A alert spots.  Done

     b.  Move four hangars from the next pad up the ramp, down to the southern most pad.  Done

4.  Next up the ramp after the SIOP tankers, non-alert FB-111A parking spots.  Need to realign existing non-alert FB spots ... four rows of four, perpendicular to the runway, each set of two parked at a 45-degree angle to intercept the ramp route leading to the parallel taxiway.  Done

5.  North of the non-alert FB-111A's, non-alert tankers of the 509th, total of 15 KC-135E's; but, with six of them sitting SIOP alert, only need to have nine spots.  Should be enough room for three rows of three, parked parallel to the runway.  In Work

6.  The pad extension off the ramp where I had originally placed the FB maintenance hangars housed the DCM hangar; from the photos it looks like it was a "heavy" hangar and able to receive aircraft from both north and south sides.  Awaiting additional information from FB-111A Association as to whether that was two hangars back-to-back or just one hangar with doors on each side.  Either way, hangar macro(s) ready to go.  On Hold

7.  ARRS at Pease deactivated 1974; remove the helicopter hangar and chopper parking spots.  (However, since some sim'ers fly choppers and may want to download/use the package, and since FS9 won't route incoming helicopters to parking if there are no helo-designated parking spots, may exercise some "artistic license" and put a couple of spots on the northeast ramp extension.)  On Hold

8.  North of Base Ops the 157th tankers (ANG).  Rework the pad off the edge of the ramp in that area and adjust the "heavy" hangar macros.  Also make 10 parking spots for KC-135E without intruding into the northeast ramp extension.  On Hold

9.  Northeast ramp extension used for transient aircraft and three T-37 ACE trainers.  Relocate transient parking spots from main ramp to the northeast extension, plus place the parking spots for three Tweets.  On Hold

It's evident that the photos on that CD provided a LOT of missing information.  Plus, the seven munitions igloos I placed (guessing at where the Weapons Storage Area was) are close enough .... there were actually 15 igloos plus the entry control point plus the munitions maintenance facilities; I figure seven igloos is a fair representation of the WSA).  I am, however, going to create the munitions trailers with bombs on them and pre-position three or four of them in the FB alert area.

With any luck, the final beta package will be ready for testing next Saturday.

Edited by sarge, 06 March 2005 - 08:39 AM.

[SargeJr3]

Sarge, your're definatly taking this seriously, can't wait to see the final beta